Paperwork

ARTICLES ABOUT PAPERWORK BY DATE - PAGE 2

Staffers for Sen. Jim Webb plan to hit the Middle Peninsula and the Northern Neck next week, hoping to help voters with paperwork problems and other issues. People needing help with Social Security, Medicare or veterans' benefits or other federal matters can attend. The tour will start Tuesday, May 29 with a two-hour stop in Gloucester and visits in Tappahannock and Mathews. Webb's workers will be at the Gloucester Main Library from 10 a.m. until noon, at the Essex Public Library from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., and at the Mathews Memorial Library from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, visit www.webb.

Some school districts badly need to fill posts, but the work required to hire foreigners is daunting. Daniela Sava should be in high demand. She has a degree in math and computer science, certification to teach math, 10 years of experience teaching the subject and a glowing evaluation from her school division in South Carolina. Math is consistently on the state's list of hard-to-fill teaching jobs. And if Sava had been born on U.S. soil, Hampton probably would have snapped her up at the school division's teacher recruitment fair last week.

Getting compensation for war-related injuries is a bureaucratic nightmare that drives veterans to the edge with "claims anxiety." Bill Mintz has trouble sleeping, trouble standing, trouble with his heart and kidneys, and trouble with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. He's disabled from post-traumatic stress disorder and complications from exposure to Agent Orange. He was in Vietnam, an artillery sergeant. His next war lasted four years, battling through reams of bewildering paperwork and a bureaucratic maze, to get disability payments totaling $2,600 a month.

Q. I am 43 years old. I know withdrawals from a Roth IRA, if taken after I turn 59 1/2, are tax free. But I still receive a lot of Roth IRA statements and other papers in the mail. Which papers should I save and why? F.C., Orlando A. Look at the basic checklist below: End-of-year statements for Roth IRAs, which should list each investment made during the course of a year. Form 5498, which you're likely to receive in the mail every May. Form 8606, which might be attached to some federal tax returns you've filed in previous years.

By now, Yvonne McClain expected to have her hands full raising two young boys -- the orphaned nephews from Zimbabwe whom she wants to adopt. But McClain's much-anticipated trip to England to pick up 10-year-old Samuel and 5-year-old Khosi ended in frustration, thanks to another snafu involving immigration paperwork. After flying overseas earlier this month, she had to come home without her nephews, who are staying with an aunt. "They said we had everything required, but then things got difficult again," said McClain, a nurse at Mary Immaculate Hospital.

Last year, the most common mistake taxpayers made was writing the wrong Social Security numbers on their federal tax returns or forgetting to jot their numbers down altogether. If only that was the worst thing filers had to worry about. Taxes are more complicated than ever. With many recent changes in the tax law, it's easy for filers to get confused, experts said. To make matters worse, con artists are busy this time of year coming up with new schemes or twists on old ones to bilk taxpayers out of money or steal their identities.

Fill out a six-page online grant application or an 82-page document that needs to be printed out and translated? Yolandia Martin is going to try both. Well, maybe. "Some of this jargon," Martin says of reading through the printout, "I just don't understand it." Martin, a member of The Potter's House, a Hampton congregation, is in the process of submitting requests for the church to be considered for funds from companies such as Verizon, whose foundation Web site details $2 million in grant money available to groups such as hers.

Residents of the Ivy Farms neighborhood said the Patton Motel was a magnet for prostitutes and drug dealers. In March 1999, the city indicted the motel as a public nuisance. It was sold soon after that. Six months later, the motel's new owners said they planned to spend $1 million to renovate it. They said the motel would be closed for six months, then re-open as a franchise. The six months passed. Another 18 months went by. The motel was still vacant. The work had not begun.

The plaque on the wall of Poquoson City Clerk Judy Wiggins' office is not a college diploma. She says she took the normal social track after she graduated from Hampton High School in 1961 and stayed at home to start a family. But the plaque is very much like a college diploma to Wiggins. It represents 17 years of training, volunteer work and on-the-job experience that made Wiggins one of just four "master municipal clerks" in Virginia. "It's brought validity to my position," Wiggins says.

A record seven presidential candidates may be on the ballot in Virginia Nov. 7. While John Hagelin and Pat Buchanan continue their fight for the Reform Party nomination and its $12.6 million in federal campaign matching funds, supporters for both men filed the necessary paperwork to be on the ballot in the final hour before Friday's noon deadline, according to election officials. Separate party labels will identify the two men. Hagelin, who ran as the Natural Law Party's candidate four years ago, is again carrying that party's banner.